The Global Change Forum

The question is no longer whether “global” changes in land use and climate will happen. Instead, the question is whether the Earth’s inhabitants will be able to manage such changes in a way that enhances the sustainability of the coupled human and natural systems on which the integrity of life on Earth depends. Detecting and understanding these changes and understanding the day to day and long term priorities that we seek to safeguard will provide a framework for adapting to these global changes: resisting degradation in these systems when possible, fostering resilience to the degree practical, and working toward the transformation of these coupled systems when necessary, to facilitate the transition of these coupled systems to new, sustainable states.

The Global Change Forum is a virtual meeting place for researchers and resource managers in the conservation and production sectors. The GCF is hosted by North Carolina State University and fosters active collaboration among researchers and managers associated with the DOI Southeast Climate Adaptation Science Center (SECASC) and the USDA Southeast Regional Climate Hub (SERCH), as well as science colleagues around the world.

This collaborative, management-oriented research approach is consistent with the missions of North Carolina State University and both the Department of Interior (protect America’s natural resources and heritage, honor our cultures and tribal communities, and supply the energy to power our future) and the Department of Agriculture (provide leadership on food, agriculture, natural resources, rural development, nutrition, and related issues based on sound public policy, the best available science, and efficient management).

This collaboration will both significantly increase the ability of the two federal agencies and NC State to leverage each other’s resources, develop complementary and integrated approaches and programs, and minimize redundancy of effort. The Global Change Forum will enable evolutionary biologists, ecologists, geneticists, genomicists, climate scientists, anthropologists, historians and even artists come together with the common hope that by using our many lenses and knowledge bases together we will see more and provide more effective information to resource mangers and decision makers than any of us would on our own.